Talk:Nova/@comment-25065826-20150301190401/@comment-24796133-20150302220025
I'm now with Cara at the medical ward. Sheer exhaustion coupled with a shock in her back brought her down pretty hard, but they say she'll be fine in a few days. They must think I'm stupid if they think I haven't seen the way they look at us. With her mark and, well, me in general, we're the freak show of the mutants here. If it means they fear us then fine, I'll use that to my advantage. Jacob comes in an hour later. "Cross wants us both in the command centre now. He's spent the best part of an hour debriefing me just now but I'm pretty sure he wants to speak to you about the whole thing as well. I doubt he's happy with you now so we'd best move." He sees Cara resting. "Is she alright?" I nod silently. I'm not in the mood for talking, so I stride out of the ward and head to the lift, down to the lower levels that lead to the command centre. In the lift Jacob raises a point. "You know, I'm not sure we're still supposed to be alive. I wonder how they're gonna work that one out." I speak at this point. "True, he did emphasise the suicide part of the mission. Hopefully the brain dead leaders now realise we're the best support they have." "Which means one of two things. Either they're sending us somewhere else where we face death, or they're locking us up for experiments..." Jacob finishes. It's bad that he's right. The lift doors open and we head out into the large command centre. Cross turns to us, a pretty angry look on his face, a few armed soldiers around the area. I guess my stunt didn't go without a few implications. One thing I do notice though are the others here. Kat, Casper, Leo, Sophia and some guy I don't recognise. Kat immediately gets up when she sees us and hugs Jacob, Casper joining them. Sophia beams from her seat and Leo comes over to me. Despite my 6ft and a little frame he's still taller than me. "You did good. Better than us at least. It's good to see you here." I nod in response, not entirely sure what he was refering too. Cross tells us to sit down and pay attention abruptly. We all focus on the screen. "Alright then. Here's the situation. Thanks to intel from Jacob and Will, we've learnt a significant amount more about Pluto's forces." At this point an image of Surfer's body shows up on the screen. I'm guessing the NCO took a picture when they found him in Iraq, but still, it's not a pretty sight. "This was one of his leaders, named 'Surfer'. The other one we know of is an older girl nicknamed 'Nano' presumably the sister of 'Surfer'. With intel from Jacob suggesting that Pluto has similar leaders stationed in other strongholds, we believe we've identified two more leaders." I pay more attention now, this just got interesting. A new image flashes on the screen, what looks like a street with two people talking on it. One of the faces is visible, and the picture zooms in as much as possible to give a clearer view. It's a male, average height and build, brown hair, and purple eyes. Cross continues to speak. "Our recon teams took this photo four days ago. We believe this mutant to be another leader. We don't know his power nor his exact role, but from surviellance he appears important. Mostly due to the fact that he has been seen leading talks with this by his side:" Another image comes on the screen of the boy on a platform speaking to a crowd. Beside him stands another figure, but to describe it as human just doens't seem right. The picture again zooms in and we get a cleare view. I hear Sophia gasp, and probably rightly so. The skin looks totally red, crimson probably, and seems a little plated, almost like rock. The face visible has no eyes. None at all, just red rock head. Nor are there ears, only a mouth that has clearly visible fangs for teeth. "That is one ugly mutant." Jacob jokes, but there's an undertone of disgust. The mutant looks truly like a monster. He'll be interesting to encounter. "These two mutants have been seen leading the others in the recon we did, it is safe to assume they are in control there." Cross says. "And where exactly are they? You didn't say." Casper says. "These images were taken in a favela near to Caracas, Venezuela. That is where we are sending all of you in four weeks time." Cross says. "Four weeks is a long time to leave them be" Leo remarks. I have to agree with him. "We predict that there will be little activity from Pluto's group after the events in Mecca..." Cross says, tailing off. Everyone but me and Jacob looks down at that. "What happened in Mecca?" Jacob asks, worried. "We'll tell you later." Casper whispers. Something bad happened clearly. Cross nods. "We'll brief you to later. For now, all of you except Will are dismissed, get training over the next four weeks." At that veryone else files out, Jacob giving me a pat on the shoulder on the way out. I stand in silnece for a minute as Cross paces across the room slowly, chin in his hands. Everyone else working in the room carries on as normal. "I have a problem with you Will," Cross says, finally stopping pacing and looking at me, "well, several actually. First, you assualted our own soldiers and disobeyed orders. Second, you brought an enemy mutant into our headquarters. And third, the other leaders of Quantum were under the impression you would not be returning from Iraq." I stay motionless for a few seconds before answering. "I never did do things according to plan." Cross sighs at this. "Is this all a game to you? Our job here is to persuade the governments and eventually the people that mutants are a force for good, and we cannot do that when you blatantly have zero regard for our instructions." "So you are saying I should have died, maybe killed myself?" I ask sarcastically. Cross doesn't answer for a second. "I'm not going to pretend that I like you Will. It is quite the opposite. You have been nothing but hostile when all we have done is help you." "Help me?" I ask angrily, "you sent me to Iraq to die, tried to kill one of my friends on return, and have ignored all of my warnings on Pluto!" Cross looks confused by this. "I have no idea what warnings you are refering to Will, we would have acted on any intel about Pluto. I know you are unwilling to listen to us, but sadly you are more use to us in the field than almost anyone else here. So, here is how it will work. Kat has been appointed as head of your mutant unit. You listen to her instructions from now on, no expections, and you and I shall continue to work together. Agreed?" I am in a state of disbelief. How can he not know what warnings I'm refering to? Was he deaf when I ran in with intel on Paris? I am too shocked to even question him, and reside myself to a nod before walking out of the room and into the lift. This whole base seems wrong, this entire operation seems wrong. Everyone seems to know everything about everyone except for me. I'm more convinced than ever that there's something out there that none of us know about, pulling strings. I bypass the floors on the lift and head straight to the roof. The fresh air feels good, and I remeber first coming up here. Not long after I first met Ghost. i wonder what happened to him in Iraq. I imagine he escaped, he's good enough to. That guy can go anywhere unseen. Is he even a guy? It's weird that I put so much faith in a person I don't even know. As I walk across the roof I suddenly hear a light tinkle on the floor. I look down and see something metallic on the flat roof. Bending down to pick it up, I see it's a bullet casing, one of those things that fires out of the side when you pull the trigger. I twirl it in my hands and see something scratched into the metal. It's a big case, it looks like a sniper round if anything. And on it is scratched a five letter word: Ghost.